-Poker Fiend-

I've always been wary of card games, and fascinated, too. Ours was not a card playing family, though I'm certain we did on rare occasions.

Then came summer camp, and those giddy teenage hormones. Before we knew it, we're staying up late at night playing Asshole and Egyptian Rat Screw by flashlight, strip poker to follow.

In humiliation, cardplay goes underground until college peer pressure links the deck to drinking games. Disrobing is part of some hands at some parties, but generally, it's about making ourselves sick.

And then..

Poker championships are televised. Celebrities are brought in, especially James Woods.

Everyone wants to play Texas Hold'em.

Hey, me too.

The Christmas poker tournament pitted me against eight relatives, all but one succumbing to my dumb luck and honest play. I say "honest play" because I don't bluff, not really. With every hand I raise, I really believe I'm capable of taking it. My relatives are a pack of bluffers, and once I'd taken a few hands, they believed in my honesty. For telling the truth, I had a high reputation.

I won the next tournament handily.

And that worries me a bit - what if I start to enjoy it way too much? It's a heady thing, victory, even if my winnings are less than half a day's pay. If you want to extrapolate my fears, go to This American Life, and search for "Poker" or "Jim McManus." Then you'll understand.

-You have a problem-

Not you, and not me; we're talking about a third party friend of my brother who became the topic of conversation at the family dinner table.

Every family member wasn't present - sorry Yellocello, but you and A didn't miss much - so the four remaining people sat in a perfect square; parents on one side, sons on the other.

So when my brother told us his friend has a drinking problem, I was fascinated by the reactions.

Each corner of the square played its part - my brother described the problem, asked us if he should do something, then peppered the rest of the conversation with anecdotes meant to solicit what exactly? Sometimes shock at the depths to which his friend had sunk, and other times a spirited defense of his friend's redeemability?

My mother, who has been critical of this alcoholic friend in the past, who whispered her disapproval to us since she first heard of his problems on the mother network, now fretted for him. Isn't that a mother's way, when someone is in need, to do all in her power to assist? But here she qualified her generosity; insisted that her son get the help of many others before he tries to confront an alcoholic.

My father is in favor of gathering an intervention, but he is troubled by each new revelation of barely avoided bar room brawls, nips at lunchtime, surly intoxicant behavior. Why, he asked, is his son traveling with someone so impaired into these misadventures? He doesn't believe my brother can control the friend's excesses as well as he claims. He believes an alcoholic could easily bring about the destruction of sober people who clean up after them.

And me? For the most part I was silent, collecting information from articles in the past, and thinking about organizations I know still operate in the present. We know AA works best in combination with some private therapy and detox - what cocktail of treatments should be presented at the intervention, and which is appropriate to him? How should the intervention itself be structured?

The other points in the square weren't talking about logistics yet. They weren't ready to research the problem, much less act on a solution. They were talking about feelings, and I felt it wasn't my place to put much more emotion into the mix. When this dinner was over, the conversation would come up again in miniature, but no point in the square will do anything more then fret until another incident worsens the situation, or nullifies it.

That's a perfect, immobile square. That's human nature, to let a problems run their course, for good or for ill. Maybe if I send the information I compiled to the other square points, they will overpower their square inertia and act out their parts. And maybe I won't in time, because I'm human, too.

-That Christmas Conspiracy-

“Look out!” I blurted, and Dad jammed the breaks. For the second time in minutes, another driver had come within a hairsbreadth of blowing our doors off from the inside.

Grumble, grumble, let-me-tell-you-why-they-cut-us-off..

It is December 23, after all, and road rage has spiked higher than Ty Cobb. This isn’t so bad when I’m driving alone, but I’m riding shotgun in my father’s car on the way to the nearest mall complex to assist him shopping for my mother – yes, he waited this long, and no, he has no idea what he should get her, and yes, he expects me to select something, and no, I have no idea either since I solved my own present problem with a lucky bit of re-gifting – riding with him is an exercise in active listening.

Blame National Review, or Fox, or anything but himself for becoming so paranoid about the world at large. All children may fear becoming their parents, and I’m no exception; I like my curmudgeon attitude right now, because when someone cuts me off or does me wrong, I still blame the individual, the he/she/it in the other vehicle. Not a larger leftist conspiracy that makes the individual ill-tempered, impatient or evil.

-Seasonal Affective Disorder: Sold-

My town may as well be named Foreclosure.

After a mostly fruitless mall experience last weekend, I tried my own main street, expecting that the cold air between merchants might stimulate the buying impulses and finish off my list.

My god, I think half as many shops are open as there were when I moved here nine months ago.

Dizzy with pity, I sat on the base of the Civil War statue until some inspiration should strike me, or some bird droppings.

Santa passed by on a firetruck. He was on his way to a candy cane shed where he asks children what they want for Christmas, then charges their parents $10 for three 4x6 photos of the experience.

A crazy woman huffed out of the creative health clinic. Every time she encountered non-caucasian people she would spin on her heel and march in the opposite direction singing top forty hits (I think?) until she realized that two separate parties of minorities were converging from both directions. She fled back into the clinic, all the worse for wear.

I didn't need a third reason to shove off, so I took a peek inside a store closing that very day. It sold a variety of items for the home and garden, some practical, some merely decorative, all very cheap. With less than an hour of sales to go, the shop's remaining goods weren't very. My pity purchase - two birdfeeders for two dollars - probably backfired.

The owner recognized me, and knew what I do for a living. She wouldn't quit trying to sell me the crappy paperbacks in her dwindling possession until my resolve tightened enough to leave without buying any more detritus. My third reason had arrived.

The mood is considerably brighter in the record shop a few blocks away. They're doing well despite their small selection and lackluster signage, and they listen compassionately to my description of the desperate home and garden scene down the street.

We're still here, the matriarch said. And we have no plans to move.

-Hot Water-

After seven months with no neighbors on either side of my apartment, I have been forced to adjust to new surroundings - two of them - on either side of suprisingly thin walls.

The noise doesn't really bother me; my landlord's lengthy screening process weeds out night people.

No, it is the water. In the past week, I've been taking military showers, if the military in question is defending Inuit territory.

There must be some time of day I can take a shower and find hot water. I think it was lukewarm for a minute at 6:30 AM once, but what good does that do me, the one night person to circumvent the screening process.

Today, a snowday; I showered at noon while one of the neighbors cleaned the car out front.

Still frigid.

But then I tried to wash my hands in the kitchen sink downstairs, and the water was scalding for several minutes.

Maybe the problem runs deeper than two new neighbors.

-The dim fluorescent lighting is punishment enough-

It would make sense if I were to mail resumes after a particularly trying day at work. But that day was yesterday - today was fairly good, actually. Since another errand took me to an library organization with a job page, I opened that job page in a new window. My screen was bisected, and I was multitasking.

We've all heard the stories about employees screwing around on the net while they're on the clock, just as some of us have probably read The Naked Employee. Whether we are watched or not, the virtual panoptican hasn't cowed the average employee. I don't know a single employee here, management included, that doesn't make off with a few minutes for private surfing.*

And this is not entirely a bad thing. Try a few weeks of data entry with green type on a black screen, and you'll wake up each morning feeling like a cockroach. The Metamorphosis meets Groundhog's Day. Where cigarette breaks once broke up the work day, internet trips fill the void.

Nevertheless, I feel enough shame to invent elaborate excuses for each transgression. It was easy to wander through sites with library or technology news; the job is the justification. Public blogs are another matter, and I still avoid this one during working hours unless I'm feeling particularly cheeky.

I can't begin to imagine what your work environment is like, or how permissive the are (or appear to be) with employees using company time for personal business. It is possible that many of you think I'm overeacting with all this.

Duly noted.

But what larger betrayal is there of an organization than using their time and equipment to search for another job?

*As long as the private surfing doesn't include criminal activity involving minors. Somebody found out the hard way earlier this year.

-Malleficia-

Is anything as soul-crushing as a desicated mall come Christmas time?

To me, the experience of mall browsing while listening to tinny versions of "Santa Claus is coming to town" is the same as having your teeth pulled by your editor while your dentist marks your story with a red pen.

At least in a large, profitable mall, I look like the only shopper who isn't enraptured by the season. In a bustling crowd, the excitement of spending too much on distant cousins' children only seen at grandparent funerals can be transformed into an event. Who's to say that Black Friday shoppers wouldn't have been equally at home rioting in a brazilian soccer stadium, or fighting bikers at a Stones Concert? Gather enough Christmas cheer in one place, and enthusiasm is bound to turn to frenzy.

But in this former steel town, extra elbow room has turned every shopper into an isolated pocket of gloom, most especially the one shopper buying a birthday gift for some advent nemontemi who made the mistake of being born this season.

After gliding through stacks of sweaters in one department, and Atlantic City glitz in another, I strolled out into the open promenade with the other downcast shoppers. I figured I might have hit paydirt with one of the unconquered-by-christmas craft stores, particularly when I noticed women the birthday girl's age eyeing the merchandise.

But as I made a circuit of the shelves, I tried to imagine facing the recipient on the birthday itself. How would I defend this gift? If the gift has to be defended at all, it must be the wrong choice.

The birthday girl and these women are not so similar, I decided. Since I have nothing else to show for the hours spent wandering and window shopping, this can only mean that I don't know what I'm doing, or who I'm shopping for.

At long last I found two suitable items in the mens' section of Boscov's. I didn't realize it was the mens' section until I saw the receipt, and I didn't realize until then that I was shopping for a tomboy.

Sorry, Mom.